Quote Originally Posted by saxonhawthorn View Post
I haven't made up my mind about applying the solder paste yet though because I have never worked with lead-free (sshhhh.....) and I don't know the preferred method: silk screen or a dab from a syringe.
The paste mask is usually thin brass stretched tight on a wood frame so you can place it slightly above the pcb. The paste dries out to unworkable pdq, at least the cheapies I have tried do. There was some bod lasering paste masks out of Mylar, I forget the details.

Problem with CNC is you either hand feed it or pick from the reel and then square it off while it's on the vacuum head. If you were in no particular rush, squaring might be easiest as a seperate put down.

Have you found plans for this gizmo?

A crummy worm will work because you can go for limited rotation and spring it. An elbow arm is fine if you set the position for every component manually, it's repeatability rather than precision.